Sparta schools win Heart Safe designation

The Sparta Township School District is the first in New Jersey to be designated as a Heart Safe School District by Project ADAM.

The designation indicates that the district’s schools have completed a cardiac emergency response plan that ensures that their automated external defibrillators (AEDs) are functional and accessible throughout the campus. The schools also have a team of staff members trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and AED use who conduct cardiac emergency response drills so they are ready to respond quickly and appropriately to a cardiac arrest.

Dr. Christa Miliaresis was one of three representatives of Project ADAM New York who toured the Sparta schools March 20. ”We’d just like to congratulate you on doing everything that you can to keep your children and your community safe.”

Project ADAM New York, based at Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital in Valhalla, N.Y., will continue to work with the Sparta district to provide resources, Miliaresis said.

The project’s mission is to protect school-aged children from dying from sudden cardiac arrest.

”Sudden cardiac arrest can happen to anybody at any time,” Miliaresis said. “It takes even the best EMS services several minutes to get there, and the first three to five minutes are critical.”

The New York chapter is an affiliate of Project ADAM, a national non-profit network of 38 top pediatric hospitals across the country that provides schools, youth sports leagues and communities free counseling and training to quickly identify sudden cardiac arrest symptoms and to administer rapid on-site intervention to prevent death.

Death of teen

Project ADAM (Automated Defibrillators in Adam’s Memory) began in 1999 after the death of Adam Lemel, a 17-year-old Wisconsin high school student who suffered a sudden cardiac arrest and died while playing in a varsity basketball game. An AED was not available.

The program is responsible for saving more than 200 lives on school campuses.

Sudden cardiac arrest is the No. 1 cause of death in the United States and the primary cause of death in student athletes. It also happens in non-athletes.

According to the American Heart Association, it afflicts more than 350,000 people each year outside of a hospital setting.

Ninety percent of sudden cardiac arrests lead to death. If performed immediately, CPR and use of an AED can triple the chance of survival.

Because 20 percent of a community is in its schools on any given day, a focused effort on cardiac arrest preparedness in schools is considered critical to protecting children and others

Alexa Griffin, the Sparta Middle School nurse, helped organize the effort to win the Heart Safe designation for the district. She previously spent almost four years at Goryeb Children’s Hospital as a pediatric/pediatric ICU nurse.

”I saw a lot of kids that survived cardiac arrest” but they had long-term health problems “mostly because care wasn’t given to them right away,” she said.

”The whole idea is that we are more prepared here with AEDs, having our teams trained appropriately. Being a little more prepared I think helps everyone get a little peace of mind with something that we don’t have a lot of control over.”